from the well-that's-unfortunate dept

For months now, we've been covering how Prenda had been losing pretty much every one of its legal fights concerning its fraudulent copyright trolling practices. I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later, but Team Prenda has bounced back with an actual victory. You may recall that one of the (many) key Prenda cases was taking place in Minnesota, where magistrate judge Franklin Noel, becoming aware of what was happening with Prenda in other courts had reopened a bunch of Prenda (via AF Holdings) cases in Minnesota to explore if Team Prenda had committed fraud upon the court. Noel dug in, demanding actual answers to various questions that Team Prenda had avoided in other cases, eventually ruling against Team Prenda and (importantly) ordering the law firm to pay back all the settlement money it had taken in via those cases.

Well, it appears that's all for nothing now. Judge Joan Ericksen has apparently stepped in to put magistrate judge Noel in his place, pointing out that he went way beyond what a magistrate judge is allowed to do and then actually siding with Prenda lawyer Paul Hansmeier in saying that the fact that team Prenda forged Alan Cooper's signatures on the copyright assignment isn't fraud on the court... and, in fact, saying that it basically doesn't matter at all. First, as to a mere magistrate judge sniffing out these problems, judge Ericksen isn't having any of it:

AF Holdings consistently objected to the
magistrate judge’s authority to determine whether it had committed a fraud on the Court.
The magistrate judge had no such authority. See Reddick v. White, 456 F. App’x 191,
193 (4th Cir. 2011) (per curiam) (“A motion for sanctions under the district court’s
‘inherent’ power is not a pretrial matter under Ã‚Â§ 636(B)(1)(a). Magistrate judges have no
inherent Article III powers—they have only those powers vested in them by Congress.
Congress has not created statutory authorization for magistrate judges to exercise
inherent Article III powers.”

Furthermore, Ericksen points out that, as a magistrate judge, Noel can't really make an order like he did (which is likely accurate), but instead can just make a recommendation for a "real" judge like Ericksen to review. And Ericksen just doesn't seem concerned about the forgery, lying and other shenanigans from Team Prenda.

Cooper’s signatures
were immaterial to the decision that granted AF Holdings expedited discovery.... AF Holdings’ submission of the agreements with
Cooper’s signatures—legitimate or not, authorized or not—to evince the transfer of the
copyrights to AF Holdings did not amount to a fraud on the Court.

It's somewhat disappointing to see a court not all that concerned that an effort that involved forgery is really no big deal, especially when it was about copyright trolling, a practice of abusing the court system to hound people into paying up to avoid having to fight a lawsuit.

That's unfortunate, but given how many other courts have ruled on Prenda's efforts and the multiple referrals to state bars, DOJ and others, I would imagine that this is merely a slight and brief reprieve for Team Prenda.

from the good-luck-with-that-argument dept

John Steele and Paul Hansmeier (who various courts have made clear, make up the core of "Team Prenda") are engaged in so many different lawsuits in which they're getting hit with so many different orders to pay up for their questionable behavior that it may be difficult to keep up. However, in Northern California last month, Judge Edward Chen ruled that Steele and Hansmeier are liable for sanctions and attorneys' fees awarded against "AF Holdings," the semi-mysterious shell company set up in Nevis, which many people (including courts) have recognized was almost certainly set up by Steele and Hansmeier themselves as some sort of way to (a) hide the fact that they were representing themselves and (b) to hide where the money goes. Of course, as court after court has seen through this charade, things aren't looking good for Steele and Hansmeier who should be fearing the eventual law enforcement response to all of this, which is almost certainly approaching.

However, they just can't resist fighting the fight, because that's what they do. When backed into a complete corner, Steele and Hansmeier tend to go into attack mode, trying any and every argument they can possibly think of, no matter how insane. But, and here's the key, they make those arguments with extreme confidence, as if only a moron would think they were wrong. The reality, of course, is that almost all of their claims are laughable. Take for example, the latest one in response to Judge Chen's ruling. Steele and Hansmeier have filed very, very similar filings that (among a few other arguments) try to argue that they cannot be found to be considered the "alter ego" of AF Holdings because Nevis law says that can only be done with the permission of the people being claimed to be the alter ego.

Under Nevis law, accordingly, a person may become an alter ego of a limited liability company only with his or her express consent.

Yes, AF Holdings was registered in Nevis, but if Steele and Hansmeier automatically think that means they can avoid liability in California, their legal skills are even worse than previously expected. Remember AF Holdings was the one who sued first... in California. The issue here is who is responsible for the absolutely bogus lawsuit. And the Court has very good reason, and significant evidence to support, that it's John Steele and Paul Hansmeier. Pretending that registering the company in Nevis somehow gives them a get-out-of-jail-free card is laughable.

Meanwhile, across the country, in the one case where Prenda actually seemed to be having some success, in front of former RIAA lobbyist Beryl Howell, John Steele has withdrawn as counsel and substituted Prenda buddy Paul Duffy. That, alone, isn't particular noteworthy -- these three guys seem to pass around cases like a group of high school kids under the bleachers passing around a joint. However, what is noteworthy is that in filing this, Steele notes that the "Plaintiff consents to Attorney Steele's withdrawal in this matter, as noted by his signature below." Who's the plaintiff? Why, it's the very same AF Holdings. And whose "signature" is it? Why, it's "Mark Lutz." And the date of the signature is... November 5th.

That's interesting. Because back at the end of September, Mark Lutz continued his magic disappearing act by not appearing in a Minnesota court, despite being ordered to be there. Hansmeier was given until the next day to explain the disappearance, and filed a substance-free brief that basically said, "I'm sure Lutz has a good reason, which he'll tell you about when he can." Specifically, Hansmeier told the court:

Based on my prior experience with Mr. Lutz, including Mr. Lutz's in-person attendance before this Court on August 5, 2012, I believe that Mr. Lutz will be able to provide a good-faith reason for failing to make his flight to Minnesota.

While there has been plenty of activity in the docket for this case (including Hansmeier's weak attempt to get magistrate judge Franklin Noel kicked off the case), there has been nothing from Lutz since Hansmeier's promise on October 1st that Lutz would explain what happened. In fact, he hasn't appeared anywhere.

But... suddenly his signature appears on November 5th in a different circuit? Hmm. It would appear he's fairly tardy in getting in his explanation. Of course, there's been some chatter on Twitter wondering if this is really Lutz's signature. We have examples of his actual signature on previous filings, so you can compare. Here's the latest one, supposedly from November 5th:

My gut reaction is that those were not written by the same person, but I'm not a handwriting expert, so we'll give Lutz the benefit of the doubt. I found another Lutz signature that looks more like the first, but it's not notarized -- and I've got a lot more confidence in the notarized version.

Of course, here's the issue. If we give Steele and Lutz the benefit of the doubt here that the signature is legitimate -- and I'm willing to do exactly that -- it would appear that they've got a different problem to deal with: the fact that Lutz never explained his absence in Minnesota. I'm trying to think if there's any other option. Either Lutz has flat out ignored a court order in Minnesota, or someone forged his name in DC. If anyone can come up with any other option, I'm all ears. I guess there's the possibility, also, that both things are true -- that he both ignored a court order and had his signature forged -- but that doesn't make the situation any better...

from the and-another-one dept

And here we go again. In yet another Prenda court case, Team Prenda has lost big. These are the cases in Minnesota that were reopened earlier this year, after the court became aware of Judge Wright's ruling in California, showing how Paul Hansmeier, John Steele, Paul Duffy and Mark Lutz appeared to be engaged in fraud on the court. In August, the magistrate judge assigned to review the cases, Franklin Noel, started demanding real answers to questions -- answers which never came.

Instead, we got a hearing in Minnesota that revealed some explosive new info, while Mark Lutz disappeared never to be heard from again. While Hansmseier and Duffy were never able to produce Lutz or answers to Judge Noel's questions, they did try to get Judge Noel kicked off the case.

None of the above strategies worked. At all. Judge Noel today not only rejected the request to pull him off the case, but also slammed Team Prenda, yet again, ordered them to pay back all the settlement money they got from the specific cases involved and then referred the case to law enforcement to look into the activities of Hansmeier, Steele, Duffy and Lutz. While he notes there are other issues being dealt with elsewhere, the main focus of Noel's inquiry was the legitimacy of Alan Cooper's signature -- and Judge Noel concludes, as have multiple other courts, that Cooper did not sign the document. And he's pretty thorough about it. He notes that AF Holdings, the shell company in question here, "failed to meet its burden of proving the authenticity of the copyright-assignment agreements."

Even more specifically, Judge Noel says that he thinks Steele lied on the stand:

Based upon Cooper’s side of these two conversations, Steele testified that it was his
“understanding that he [Cooper] had given authority to Mark and his people if he
wasn’t available, that he could sign the various documents as long as he understood
what the document related to . . . .” Finding Steele’s testimony
regarding his “understanding” of an agreement between Cooper and Lutz to be
vague, the Court asked directly, “Did you hear Mr. Cooper give Mr. Lutz authority
or permission to sign his name to documents?” Steele replied “yes.”
The Court expressly disbelieves Steele’s testimony in this regard.

Noel goes on to point out that AF Holdings failed to produce an officer of the company who was "capable of testifying to the authenticity of each copyright-assignment agreement." He doesn't make much of Lutz's not appearance (and subsequent disappearance) other than mentioning that Lutz did not appear.

In the end, the court finds that fraud was committed on the court and orders the return of all the settlement money and the payment of attorneys' fees, which should add some more to the top of what Duffy, Hansmeier and Steele have on their ever-growing tab. The court also notes that it would be a waste of its time to "untangle the relationship between Hansmeier, Steele, Duffy, Dugas, Lutz and Prenda Law, on the one hand--and the Plaintiff AF Holdings, LLC., on the other." Instead, "such investigation can more effectively be conducted by federal law enforcement...." While it's likely federal law enforcement was already looking into all of this after Judge Wright alerted them to the case, having another judge make a similar recommendation can't hurt (well, unless you're Team Prenda. Then it hurts).

from the same-old-bag-of-tricks dept

One of the many (weak) tricks in the big ol' Prenda "bag of tricks" is to accuse judges who rule against them of bias, and try to get them thrown off the case. It hasn't worked so far, but the Prenda spirit seems to be to never, ever, ever give up trying the same old bogus crap. So here we are with Paul Hansmeier trying to get magistrate judge Franklin Noel disqualified from the case in Minnesota where he's been a giant pain in the ass for Team Prenda, because he's been digging into their actions to determine if a bunch of Minnesota lawsuits were actually fraud on the court. Noel's been pretty careful and methodical, even as Team Prenda has done their usual tapdance. Remember, Judge Noel was the one who ordered them to show up in court with someone who could answer questions -- and Prenda failed to produce Mark Lutz (who, as far as I can tell, is still missing).

So what was Noel's big crime that should get him thrown off the case? Apparently it was giving a talk about copyright trolls and some of the details of Prenda to the Student Federal Bar Association at the University of Minnesota Law School (added bonus: Paul Hansmeier and John Steele are alumni of that school). They claim that the talk is a form of ex parte communication and shows that Judge Noel has "prejudged" them in part because the emailed description of the event mentioned Prenda's "bad behavior." Even as they admit that Noel probably didn't write the email, they say it's guilt by association.

They also claim that the emailed announcement contains details that Hansmeier insists were only filed under seal in the cases -- suggesting that Judge Noel may have revealed that information:

The e-mail further discloses information
about the settlement demands in this case. Yet, Plaintiff’s settlement demands were filed
under seal by order of the district court. The e-mail’s author appears to be in possession
of non-public sealed information, which a reasonable person might conclude was
furnished by the Magistrate Judge, even if it was not.

Of course, the information on settlement demands by Team Prenda can be found widely online. Hansmeier leaves that bit out, of course.

Hansmeier continues to flail wildly around, arguing that Judge Noel has clearly been reading blogs including those "created by individuals who have been caught infringing" because "many of his comments echoed criticisms" on those blogs. Of course, what Hansmeier leaves out is that those same criticisms have now been validated by multiple federal courts. It is not, in any way, out of turn for Judge Noel to make note of that. Later, Hansmeier argues that the cases have generated "notoriety" and uses the example that a letter he sent the judge "was the subject of an immediate feature story on several pirate websites." As far as I know, we here at Techdirt were actually the first to write about that letter. I know Ars Technica picked up on our story and wrote one as well. Neither of our sites are "pirate blogs." We're both media organizations that cover a variety of issues. Earlier in his filing, Hansmeier argued that these pirate blogs were all set up by people who had been accused of infringement. That's a blatantly false statement regarding us, and one hopes that Hansmeier will correct the record, though that seems unlikely.

Back to the issue at hand, it does seem a bit strange, and perhaps unwise, for a judge to give a talk about a case that is still ongoing. But whether or not it actually qualifies for being disqualified from the case seems like a stretch. But, it is the Prenda way: flail and flail and flail some more.

from the might-not-be-real-and-if-they-are,-so-what? dept

So, last week, Brett Gibbs dropped quite the bombshell in one of the key Prenda cases, in which he revealed some spreadsheets that had been shared with him via a Dropbox account, showing that John Steele and Paul Hansmeier had received about 70% of Prenda's proceeds, despite insisting they had no direct relationship with the firm. As expected, lawyers in other Prenda cases have rushed to file those documents in their cases as well. In Minnesota, Paul Hansmeier
has responded, seeking to block the filing of the documents to Magistrate Judge Franklin Noel, who has been overseeing an investigation into the possibility of fraud on the part of Team Prenda. The argument, summed up, is "who knows if those documents are legit, they don't show anything bad, they're not relevant and they were obtained illegally." Almost all of that is, in typical Hansmeier fashion, ridiculous:

Second, the documents Mr. Godfread proposes to file are inadmissible because
they are not authenticated. Mr. Godfread claims that the exhibits "appear" to be financial
records of Prenda Law, Inc. Perhaps he is right, but I have not reviewed Prenda Law's
financials and neither, presumably, has he. Until he can authenticate the documents, they
are inadmissible;

Seems like there's a pretty quick way to take care of that. Judge Noel can put one of the Prendaristas on the stand and ask them if the documents are accurate. Either way, claiming that they're not "authenticated" seems like pretty weak sauce at this stage of the game.

Third, the documents undermine Mr. Godfread's narrative. I have consistently
stated—often to deaf ears—that I sold my law practice to Prenda Law in late-2011 and
subsequently pursued other interests. That is what these documents show. I am labeled an
"old owner" throughout the documents. With one de minimus exception, the only
transfers I received from Prenda Law were in consideration of the sale of my practice;

As Gibbs detailed in his filing, the use of "old owners" was clearly done to leave open exactly this excuse, but it does not seem even remotely credible given the massive amount that continued to go to both Steele and Hansmeier long after the sale. While it's certainly not unheard of for service businesses like law firms and accounting firms to include a percentage of ongoing revenue for a few years after sale, having this much go to Steele and Hansmeier suggests something else. At the very least, it's quite relevant for a deeper discussion into Hansmeier's and Steele's claims of having no relationship with Prenda.

Fourth, the documents have no relevance to the subject-matter of this case, which
was filed as an action for copyright infringement. Although it has since morphed into a
different matter, the day-to-day ledgers of a law firm are not relevant to either inquiry;

Really? I mean, this one doesn't even require a response, since the "subject-matter" of the case is about whether or not Prenda and related companies and individuals were engaged in fraud. It seems highly relevant.

Fifth, if these documents are authentic, then they were stolen. No business would
release sensitive financial documents to its adversaries. I understand that this matter is
being investigated and will be reported to law enforcement, as appropriate.

Again, as Gibbs explained, it appears these documents were placed in a shared Dropbox account, meaning they were given to him. Yes, at the time he was still part of Team Prenda, but that doesn't mean the documents were "stolen." Anyway, there's something kind of funny about Hansmeier saying that this 'theft' "will be reported to law enforcement." It seems quite likely that law enforcement already knows... and that's because there's an ongoing investigation of Hansmeier.

from the also:-eff-is-pure-evil dept

When we last left Team Prenda, they were dealing with the fallout from the Perry Mason-like moment in court in which Alan Cooper -- who has accused Prenda's John Steele of forging his name/identity on multiple occasions -- revealed that he first found out about his signature on copyright assignment documents from John Steele's mother-in-law, Kim Eckenrode. In response, the best that John Steele and Paul Hansmeier could say in response was (1) she's "religious" and (2) she spends a lot of time reading the popular anti-troll websites DieTrollDie and FightCopyrightTrolls. Late last week, Hansmeier filed a declaration from Eckenrode along with a memorandum that tries to support Team Prenda's position and to (once again) attack Alan Cooper's credibility. Unfortunately, as with so many Prenda filings, once you get past the surface story, everything else falls apart. Quickly.

First off, they claim that Cooper has been trying to hide the involvement of Eckenrode, because this would somehow undermine Cooper's argument:

There is a very
simple reason why Mr. Cooper, his financial benefactors at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and
his putative attorney, Paul Godfread, fought to avoid revealing Ms. Eckenrode’s identity. They knew that the moment Mr. Cooper revealed Ms. Eckenrode’s identity, Ms. Eckenrode would be contacted by Plaintiff to learn her side of the story.

Well, yes. But, uh, considering that Eckenrode is Steele's mother-in-law and supposedly reads all those sites, um, then wouldn't she have mentioned to Steele at some earlier point how she had texted Cooper about his signature? In all that time, she never brought it up? Really? That seems difficult to believe.

Either way, the filing suggests that Eckenrode's affidavit undermines Cooper's claims, but that doesn't appear to be true. In it, she claims that she didn't just text Cooper out of the blue, but rather she had seen a mention of Cooper on one of the sites (DTD or FCT, though she doesn't specify which...) and had told her own husband about it. Sooner after, Cooper had called her husband to discuss having shot a deer (they apparently spoke a few times about hunting). The husband mentioned Ms. Eckenrode's comments to Cooper, who asked to be sent the articles:

On or about November 15, 2012 Alan called and spoke
to my husband about a deer he had shot on John's property
the week before. My husband told Alan that I read a recent
article in one of the above-mentioned websites and noticed
that the name Alan Cooper was used in conjunction with a
company called AF Holdings. Alan asked me to send what I
had seen on those websites to him, and I did.

That still doesn't change the fact that this is how Cooper first found out about the documents where his signature appears to have been forged (and which courts have ruled were forged). And, in fact, later in the affidavit, Cooper appears to respond to Eckenrode to say that it's "not my signature."

On September 30, 2013, I learned that Alan had
testified before the Honorable Judge Noel in Minnesota that
I had sent Alan a text for the purpose of notifying Alan that
his name was being used in connection with adult content
companies. This is not accurate. I sent the text to notify
Alan that I had discovered a document online signed 'Alan
Cooper', and to ask if he thought it could possibly be the one
he had discussed with my husband when we were in
Minnesota. Alan indicated "That's me" and "not my
signature."

That still doesn't seem to contradict the story, so I'm not entirely clear why Hansmeier appears to be doing some sort of victory dance about how this changes everything. Again, it's difficult to believe that nowhere in the past year since Cooper first went public with this that Eckenrode never bothered to mention this exchange to Steele if Cooper was supposedly completely misrepresenting things. Also, in the memorandum, Hansmeier claims that Cooper confirmed that the documents were the ones he had discussed in the past. But that's not what Eckenrode's affidavit says. It says he said "that's me" and "not my signature." By which he could certainly mean that it's obviously "him" that is supposedly signing the documents, but it wasn't his signature. In short: it would support his story. He recognizes that someone at Prenda is trying to use his identity (hence: "that's me") to forge his signature ("not my signature"). Yet in the filing, Hansmeier instead claims that "The purpose of the text message was to ask Mr. Cooper if the documents referenced on the blogs were the ones he had referenced in Minnesota. Mr. Cooper confirmed that they were." Except it's not clear he really did that.

There are some other oddities in the story as well. For example, last week in court, Steele apparently almost broke down on the stand claiming that he got out of the trolling business after seeing an image of his home, his child and a gun, with people asking what kind of bullets to use to kill Steele. That claim raised significant skepticism from multiple observers of Team Prenda's actions, because no one can recall ever seeing anything even remotely like that on a site. Eckenrode, however, claims a similar thing -- again without a single specific:

On one occasion, I saw an article on one of the above
websites showing pictures of the home where John and his
family lived. This was very disturbing to me. I asked the
people running the website to please take that information
off their website because I was afraid for my family's safety.
On another occasion, the websites had posted 3 picture of
my daughter and had posts slandering her. I was disturbed
and hurt by the disrespect shown my family and
communicated such. I also asked that to be removed.

Why would she not name the sites in question? I'm not saying this didn't happen, because it very well might have. But, it does seem odd that neither Steele nor his mother-in-law seem to state what site this actually happened on. And, if Eckenrode asked for the image to be removed, then there should be a record of that somewhere.

Also, as in the past, Team Prenda likes to claim that anti-troll blogs are "pro-piracy," which is just silly. Oh yeah, and calling Cooper's lawyer, Paul Godfread, his "putative" attorney is just really childish.

And then there's the usual ridiculous attack on the EFF, again falsely claiming that they were Cooper's "financial benefactors" merely because EFF paid for Cooper's trip to court when Judge Wright ordered him to be there. And then going off on this little anti-EFF rant:

The overriding mission of the EFF has been to shield the Internet from effective
regulation--"defending it from the intrusion of territorial government." Jack L.
Goldsmith & Tim Wu, Who Controls the Internet?: Illusions of a Borderless World .... This mission is radical, quasi-anarchist, and intrinsically opposed to any effective
enforcement of intellectual property rights. Purporting to speak on behalf of
"Cyberspace," a co-founder of the EFF (who presently serves on its Board of Directors)
has warned the "Governments of the Industrial World" that "[y]our legal concepts of
property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us." John Perry
Barlow, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

Quoting John Perry Barlow out of context may seem like fun, but it really just makes you look confused and silly. Also, misrepresenting EFF and trying to smear them with claims like "quasi-anarchist" may win points in certain circles, but one expects judges to see through that kind of baseless confused rhetoric. If anything, it just highlights the lack of real arguments from Hansmeier and Team Prenda. EFF is pretty well respected on these issues -- even among those who disagree with them. Launching an insult barrage against the organization only raises more questions about those raising such silly claims.

from the that's-not-what-they-asked dept

So we already covered the amazing disappearing act of Mark Lutz, the claimed "mastermind" of copyright trolling operation AF Holdings, though it appears almost no one (including courts) believe that Lutz is anything more than a patsy for John Steele and Paul Hansmeier, as was made clear quite early on in the infamous Sunlust hearing last year. Lately, Lutz has been missing a lot of things. He's missed two court hearings and one deposition.

At yesterday's hearing, apparently Magistrate Judge Franklin Noel gave Paul Hansmeier until today at 5pm to "explain the absence of Mark Lutz." Hansmeier actually filed his declaration early, but it doesn't appear to actually explain the absence. Instead, it goes on at length about how Lutz planned to be there (as was stated in court), but when it gets to the point where he's supposed to actually explain where Lutz went, instead we get this:

Mr. Lutz was traveling with another witness to the Hearing. The witness indicated that Mr. Lutz was not on the flight from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I have attempted to contact Mr. Lutz but have been unable to reach him as of the time of this declaration. Based on my prior experience with Mr. Lutz, including Mr. Lutz’s prior in-person attendance before this Court on August 5, 2013, I believe that Mr. Lutz will be able to provide a good-faith reason for failing to make his flight to Minnesota.

Mr. Lutz has previously complied with orders to appear, including in Ingenuity 13 LLC v. Doe, No. 12-cv-8333 (C.D. Cal.); AF Holdings LLC v. David Harris, No.12-cv-2144 (D.Az.); and in this case, where he appeared in person at the August 5,2013, case management conferences

This is bizarre on multiple levels. First, Hansmeier filed this pretty early in the day, well before he was required to do so. You'd think, given the requirement to explain the absence, that Hansmeier would give Lutz at least some time today to get in touch. Saying he's sure that Lutz "will be able to provide a good-faith reason for failing to make his flight" is not actually answering what the court asked.

Second, the fact that Hansmeier states that Lutz appeared at a few hearings, but then fails to mention that he has missed a more recent hearing and a deposition just seems to be purposely trying to mislead the court. It's pretty clear that the lawyer on the other side, Paul Godfread, will point out those other recent absences, so it's a bit wacky that Hansmeier seems to think that ignoring them will not reflect poorly on himself.

Finally, the declaration also gives the details of Lutz's flight info:

Mr. Lutz also purchased a plane ticket from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Minneapolis, MN. His booked flight, US Airways Flight 1924, departed from Fort Lauderdale at 8:35 a.m. on Sunday September 29, 2013, and landed in Charlotte, North Carolina. His connecting flight, US Airways Flight 713 departed from Charlotte, North Carolina at 11:25 a.m. and landed in Minneapolis at 1:05 p.m. on Sunday September 29, 2013.

This, itself, raises some questions. First of all, if Lutz did, in fact, live in Miami, Fort Lauderdale is a little bit outside of Miami, so getting to the airport takes some time (I've done that trip a few times). In court, John Steele claimed that he drove around in the morning looking for Lutz and found some of his friends who said he'd turned in early to get ready for the flight. At what time was this? If the flight was at 8:35 am, even if they were aiming to get to the airport at ~7:30 am, Steele must have gone looking for Lutz by 6 am or so (even that's probably pretty late). So Steele went randomly driving around Miami at 6 am and magically found Lutz's friends, but not Lutz? Really?

from the again? dept

We already posted Nancy Sims' account of what happened in the latest Prenda hearing in Minnesota, but wanted to follow it up with some analysis, because there was a fair bit of interesting stuff in there. As you may recall, this is the case that was reopened after it had already been closed, because the Court wanted to get to the bottom of whether or not Team Prenda was engaged in fraudulent practices. To that end, Magistrate Franklin Noel started demanding actual answers to very on point questions. So far, Team Prenda has continued to dance around actually answering those questions, and the hearing was no different. The things that stood out to me from Sims' writeup:

Mark Lutz's disappearing act:

Mark Lutz has made it something of a habit to not appear where he's required to. He missed a key hearing in San Francisco, as well as a deposition in Georgia. In the California case, it took Team Prenda nearly a week to even acknowledge that Lutz had an excuse, which it then tried to keep shielded from the public. After that was rejected (repeatedly), it was finally admitted that Lutz was apparently "detained" at the airport while trying to board the flight. In this case, they produced a boarding pass, though it's unclear why John Steele would have Lutz's boarding pass, or how he magically found Lutz's friends driving around the streets of Miami early in the morning (the hearing in Minnesota was in the late morning, so it must have been an early flight). It seems unlikely that courts are going to continue to forgive Lutz for his disappearing act when ordered by courts to appear.

It was especially pertinent in this case, given that the whole focus of this particular hearing was on the legitimacy of the copyright assignment to AF Holdings, and the point was to get everyone together in a room to find out who actually signed the document. Lutz not showing up can't make Judge Noel happy -- and he'd already demonstrated an awareness that Team Prenda is up to no good with all of its activities.

John Steele finally takes a stand... though he may wish he hadn't.

This was a bit odd. Seeing as Steele had pleaded the Fifth in the Otis Wright case in California, it seems like a badly miscalculated move to take the stand in Minnesota, where he needed to testify about some of the same issues. His testimony can go back and be used elsewhere, including in Otis Wright's court. You don't get to plead the fifth in one court, pretend that never happened, and then testify in another court.

Furthermore, Steele made a bunch of claims that appear to contradict previous claims. For example, he talks about how he supposedly helped Cooper set up VPR Internationale. Of course, we'd already discussed how the timing on this is wrong. In a previous filing in a case in Arizona, Steele had said, via sworn deposition, that Cooper had expressed interest in setting up a company in early 2011, and then later said that "Cooper ended up not moving forward with the ideas Steele proposed to him." Yet, VPR Internationale was formed in 2010 (i.e.,. before this conversation supposedly happened). And while it had Alan Cooper's name attached to it, it was done with John Steele's email account, and the physical address was of Steele's sister. Also, while Steele had said in the earlier case that Cooper never went forward with this company, now he's claiming he did, which would explain why actual lawsuits were filed under this. It would appear that in either this case or the Arizona case, something Steele said was blatantly false.

Also, the claims about hooking up Lutz and Cooper seem far fetched and unbelievable given a variety of other statements. Cooper directly denied ever talking to Lutz on the stand. But then there's the question of who actually got the signature, and here Steele starts to throw Lutz under the bus, saying that he believed that Cooper had authorized Lutz to sign on his behalf. That's interesting, because in the now infamous deposition of Paul Hansmeier in the case in Northern California, Hansmeier (who is now acting as the lawyer in this case, if you can keep all this straight) specifically said that Lutz had asked Steele about Cooper's signature and if it's legit. From that deposition in February:

Mark Lutz spoke to Mr. Steele and said, Well, I understand that there's an issue with this Alan Cooper and asked Mr. Steele point-blank, Is the signature a forgery. Mr. Steele said the signature is not forgery. And he asked him, Is the -- is this signature authentic. Mr. Steele says, yes, the signature is authentic. Based on Mr. Steele's representation, we have no reason to believe from what Mr. Steele said, at least, that the signature is a forgery or there's some sort fraud going on with respect to the signature.

So... to get this straight: in different cases, Steele, Hansmeier and Lutz have argued that Cooper actually signed the document, that Steele got Cooper to sign the document, that Lutz asked Steele if the signature was legit... and that Steele overheard Cooper and Lutz talking, believed that Cooper gave Lutz permission to sign his name, and that it's likely Lutz who signed for Cooper (something Cooper fully denies).

Of course, if, as they're claiming now, Lutz signed for Cooper, then why would Lutz have called Steele to confirm the signature is legit, as Hansmeier himself said while being deposed? Hansmeier and Steele simply can't keep their story straight -- and telling different courts wholly conflicting answers is generally not a smart thing to do (leaving aside the move to plead the Fifth elsewhere and then testify on the same issues later). I've said it before and I'll say it again: Steele reminds me of people I've known who think they're the smartest person in the world, when they're really not. They seem to think they can talk themselves out of any situation at all. But they generally end up making things worse and worse for themselves.

Thanksgiving in the Steele household may be chilly this year

The wacky issue to come out of the hearing is the involvement of John Steele's mother-in-law, Kim Eckenrode (Steele's wife's maiden name is Kerry Eckenrode). There had been earlier reports that Alan Cooper had received "a text message" telling him to call Paul Godfread, which is how Cooper first found out about his name being used in these cases, leading to his filings claiming forgeries. Team Prenda had long implied that this magic "text" had come from the EFF, which Team Prenda has sought to paint as some crazy group of radicals. But, it turns out that the text message, now entered into evidence, came directly from Steele's own mother-in-law, telling Cooper he should call a lawyer.

Steele tried to play this off by arguing (1) his mother-in-law was religious and disapproved of Steele working with porn companies and (2) she frequented blogs like DieTrollDie and FightCopyrightTrolls. Still, it's quite a leap from those two points to recognizing that Cooper's signature may have been used on filings in various cases without his approval. The fact that the elder Eckenrode understood enough about what was going on to alert Cooper that it appeared her own son-in-law was up to no good with his name just adds an interesting element to all of this. I'm almost surprised Steele didn't claim that Eckenrode was a dues-paying member of EFF.

Either way, I can't imagine that's good for family gatherings in the near future.

Get to the damn point

As is frequently the case, Team Prenda seems to want to do everything possible to avoid actually zeroing in on what judges are asking. In this case, the hearing was solely about whether or not the copyright assignment was legit, and Hansmeier tried to put a bunch of totally irrelevant people on the stand to smear Cooper, and then tried to get Cooper to talk about totally unrelated issues as well. I'm not sure why Hansmeier, Steele and Duffy seem to think this "baffle them with bullshit" strategy will be effective, because the deeper you look, it just makes them look more and more like they're not being straight with the court -- and, while they may think they're smarter than everyone else, I have faith that more and more judges clearly understand what Team Prenda has been up to.

from the and-mark-lutz-has-disappeared dept

Lawyer Nancy Sims attended the latest Prenda hearing today in Minnesota and agreed to let us post her recap of what happened in the courtroom. We'll have a more complete analysis of what happened later. For now, this is a "just the facts" coverage of the events of the day.

I attended the hearing today in what the presiding judge, Magistrate
Judge Franklin Noel, characterized as “several iterations of” AF
Holdings LLC v. Doe (case nos. 12-1445 – 12-1449). The cases at hand
have all previously settled and been dismissed, but the court
determined it has the inherent authority to investigate whether it has
been the victim of a fraud.

The order
for the hearing limited the discussion to whether the copyright
assignment agreements for two films, "Popular Demand" and "Sexual
Obsession," attached as exhibits in the various AF Holdings v. Doe
cases, are authentic. The discussion during the hearing ranged a bit
further afield.

These are my own impressions of what happened, but I don't guarantee
their accuracy -- I'm not a court reporter, and I'm not fully up on the
details of all the Prenda/AF Holdings/etc cases. And I couldn't always
hear everything. I've tried to be fairly objective in reporting what I
saw and heard, but to own up to my biases, I am an attorney whose
interest in copyright sits solidly on the public interest side. I
don't represent or have any interests with respect to any of the folks
present in court today, to the best of my knowledge. (How's that for
lawyer-talk.)

Individuals present in the courtroom today included:

Paul Hansmeier, lead attorney for plaintiff AF Holdings, LLC

John Steele, formerly a legal partner of Mr. Hansmeier

Brent Berry, northern MN real estate lawyer

Jason Flesher, northern MN resident

Alan Cooper, who alleges his signature was forged on documents related
to AF Holdings

Paul Godfread, attorney for Mr. Cooper

And some audience members.

John Steele Takes The Stand

Mr. Hansmeier began the day by calling his first witness, Steele, and
displaying to him on a document viewer the copyright assignment for
"Sexual Obsession." Mr. Steele authenticated the assignor's signature
as that of Ray Rogers, based on familiarity with Mr. Rogers signature
from several instances of business, etc. Mr. Steele also testified
that he believed the use of Mr. Cooper's signature on this document
was authorized, because Steele introduced Cooper to the
owner/controlling member of AF Holdings.

At this point, and at a couple of later points, the judge asked what
exhibit number the documents were that Hansmeier was displaying (since
the document viewers don't produce an ongoing copy.) Hansmeier
apparently didn't intend to offer the documents into evidence, but the
court later entered the copyright assignments in question (originally
filed as exhibits in cases 12-1445 - 1449) as exhibits 1 and 2 for
this hearing.

Hansmeier elicited lengthy testimony from Steele as to his knowledge
of Cooper's involvement with AF Holdings, his involvement with helping
Cooper to form a company (VPR, Inc) to market adult content, and about
the nature of Steele and Cooper's relationship over the years. The
overview of this testimony is that Cooper was recommended to Steele in
2006 or so as a possible caretaker for his cabin in northern MN, that
Cooper lived there subsequently rent-free in exchange for a limited
amount of work around the property, that subsequent to Steele's
divorce they had hung out more, and that they had been "very good
friends by 2010." Steele also testified that he had helped Cooper set
up VPR, Inc, that Steele had introduced Cooper to Mark Lutz, and heard
Cooper's end of phone calls with Lutz on at least two occasions, and
that Cooper had gotten "a kick" out of being associated with the adult
industry, and repeatedly joked with friends and others about coming to
work for him in his porn company, at least as early as 2011.

Steele testified that he had closed his law firm, Steele Hansmeier,
over a short period starting in November 2011, because "I was quite
frankly surprised with the vitriol and nastiness of the pirates we
were pursuing." He mentioned a blog post that showed pictures of his
house and small child, and included violent threats against the
family. Steele appeared visibly upset during this part of his
testimony. Steele continued his testimony to affirm that after closing
the lawfirm, he decided to sell his cabin in July of 2012. At this
point, the Judge himself intervened to ask what the point of this
testimony was; Mr. Hansmeier said it was directed towards motive.

Steele then testified that Mr. Cooper had been angry and hostile once
he knew the sale was going forward, and that Cooper had taken items
from the property, caused property damage, and attacked or threatened
people who came on the property. The judge again intervened, to direct
the discussion toward an end point; Mr. Hansmeier then asked Steele
about his knowledge of rumors, started by Mr. Cooper, that Steele had
molested Cooper's daughter.

Things then got refocused on the topic of the hearing. The copyright
assignment for "Popular Demand" was shown to Steele, and he again
authenticated Ray Rogers's signature for the assignor, and stated that
Steele himself had used this document to file registration documents
with the Copyright Office. Then, focusing on the other signature,
Steele testified that he did not know if Cooper had signed the
documents himself, but spoke to his "understanding" that Cooper had
authorized Lutz and his people to sign documents like this on his
behalf.

Judge Noel then directed several questions to Steele about the
documents in question, and Steele's understanding that Cooper had
authorized Lutz to sign on his behalf. Judge Noel elicited that this
was based on hearing Cooper's half of two phone conversations with
Lutz. Noel also elicited that Steele does not actually know if Cooper
signed those documents, but that as far as Steele knew, Cooper had had
a position as a "helper" for AF Holdings. Steele testified that he did
not know if Cooper was employed by AF -- because Steele himself had no
involvement with AF, other than them having been very briefly clients
of the Steele Hansmeier firm. Finally, Noel questioned Steele as to
whether he knew who signed the Cooper name on either of the exhibits,
and Steele testified that he did not.

Jason Flesher's testimony

Hansmeier called Jason Flesher to the stand, who testified that he had
known both Steele and Cooper for 4-5 years. Hansmeier began
questioning Flesher about the nature of Steele and Cooper's
relationship, but the judge redirected him, and he then focused his
questioning on Flesher's knowledge of Cooper's involvement in AF
holdings. Flesher testified that Cooper's partner, Charity (last name
not ever clearly established) had talked with him about her concern
over Cooper's adult industry involvement on cabin visits as early as
2011, but that he did not know anything further about Cooper's
invovlement in signing documents, or details of his involvements with
any companies. The judge briefly questioned Flesher about his
knowledge of the copyright assignment documents (none) or familiarity
with Cooper's signature (none), and Flesher was dismissed.

Brent Berry's testimony

Hansmeier called Brent Berry to the stand, and began questioning him
about the nature of Cooper and Steele's relationship, Cooper's
behavior after Steele decided to sell the house, and so on. The judge
intervened to focus again on the documents, eliciting that Berry had
seen Cooper's signature before, but wouldn't recognize it on sight,
and did not know if the signature on the documents was Cooper's.

Alan Cooper takes the stand

Hansmeier then called Cooper to the stand. Hansmeier's questions posed
to Cooper were often spoken quite quickly, so in a number of
instances, Cooper had to ask them to be restated. Cooper also fairly
frequently didn't respond directly to the questions, so this part of
the recap is a bit more out of order.

Hansmeier's initial line of questioning focused on Cooper's claim that
other AF Holdings documents had included forgeries. Cooper wasn't
quite sure why he was being questioned about other people's
signatures; "I'm concerned about my signature." Finally, the judge
directed some specific questions about Cooper's knowledge about
specific signatures related to the case, and Cooper responded that he
did not have any specific evidence about forgeries of signatures for
Mooney, Webber, or Salt Marsh. Godfread objected that this seemed to
be litigating the motion pending in October, and this was sustained.

Hansmeier began a new line of questioning, about Cooper's testimony in
other courts as to his involvement with AF Holdings. Cooper
acknowledged that he became aware that his signature was being used
related to AF Holdings in late 2012. Cooper stated that Steele had
told him at an earlier date that if anyone asked any questions, they
were to be directed to Steele. Hansmeier cut off Cooper's testimony on
that point, and kept questioning him about other members of his
community who might have made him aware of his involvement at an
earlier date. Cooper testified that his father-in-law (an ex
law-enforcement officer) had told him he needed to find out why
Steele was telling him to forward any questions.

After this, Hansmeier's questions shifted direction repeatedly. He
raised several points apparently intended to discredit Cooper: about
being paid for testimony (Cooper denied he is), having expenses
covered for his trip to an LA hearing (Cooper affirmed flight and one night
hotel were covered by EFF), lost jobs (Cooper denied), mental health
diagnoses and medications (also denied), and whether Cooper had ever
signed anything on behalf of Steele (some unclear discussion about DMV
registrations.)

There was a confusing line of questioning about why Cooper thinks he's
being held out as CEO of AF Holdings. Cooper tried to look something
up on his phone (and was directed by the judge to stop). Cooper
basically insisted that he wasn't the CEO of AF Holdings, and the
judge eventually said that whatever was on the documents in evidence
would have to be good enough. Hansmeier worked hard to get Cooper to
testify "who told you that your name was being held out as CEO of AF
Holdings" but Cooper just didn't remember, and focused on his concerns
about his signature being misused.

Another line of questioning focused on how Cooper had retained
Godfread, and a text message he had received, which was his first
alert as to his name being used in association with AF Holdings.
Cooper testified that the text had come from a Kim Eckenrode, who is John Steele's mother-in-law. Cooper also
testified that he had been referred to Godfread via an attorney whose
number Eckenrode had texted to him.

Cooper denied any specific memory of March 18, 2011 (which I believe
is the date Steele testified he introduced Cooper to Lutz by phone.)
Finally, Hansmeier asked Cooper why he believed Steele owned Prenda
Law; Cooper said Steele told him that, but that he had never seen any
documents to that effect.

The judge then questioned Cooper, establishing that he had no
familiarity with AF Holdings prior to the text from Eckenrode, that
Cooper had never worked for AF Holdings or AF Films (Steele had
previously testified that he thought any mentions of AF Films were
typos), that he'd never signed any documents on behalf of AF Holdings
or Films, that the signatures on the copyright assignments in question
are not his and that he does not know who signed them, that he did not
authorize anyone to sign his name, and that he did not know these
documents were being submitted to a court "with what purports to be
your signature."

Godfread then questioned his client; Cooper denied Steele approaching
him in 2010 about getting involved in the porn industry. He also
stated that he did not know about VPR, Inc before last year, nor had
he agreed to be an officer or have any other position with that group,
nor to authorize use of his signature for that venture. Cooper stated
that he had never met Lutz, nor talked to Lutz on the phone, nor ever
indirectly told someone to talk to Lutz on his behalf. Cooper said
that he did not authorize use of his signature on any documents
related to AF Holdings or AF Films.

Godfread introduced a copy of the text from Eckenrode, including an
attached image of Cooper's purported signature on a document. There
was some discussion about the admissibility of this copy of the text,
including questioning from the judge about how Godfread had gotten the
text to the page (emailed to himself). It was entered in the record as
Exhibit 3, "with all caveats about what it purports to be." Godfread
questioned Cooper basically as to whether the printout of the text was
what Cooper had received from Eckenrode. The judge asked briefly if
Cooper had ever received any money from AF Holdings or VPR, or been
employed by AF (no to all.)

Hansmeier then questioned Cooper (or tried to) about Hansmeier's own
previous conversations with Cooper. Cooper expressed confusion about
whether he'd met Paul Hansmeier or his brother Peter, and maintained
that whichever brother had visited the cabin, Cooper had not been
around much or talked much with him. Hansmeier brought up that he had
stayed in Cooper's own cabin, but Cooper said he'd stayed away during
that visit because "I didn't want to deal with you". Hansmeier,
apparently taken somewhat aback, said "I didn't know that," and
allowed that line of questioning to drop.

Hansmeier tried to call Godfread to the stand, and Godfread objected.
The judge conferred with his clerk for a bit, and questioned Hansmeier as
to his intent in questioning Godfread (to establish whether AF
Holdings had any knowledge of Cooper's concerns prior to filing the
copyright assignments with courts). Godfread reiterated no knowledge
on those points. After a bit more conferring, Judge Noel directed the
attorneys to Shelton v. American Motors, 805 F 2d 1323 as on point,
and said they'd reconvene on that point after lunch.

Before lunch, Hansmeier brought Steele back to the stand to address
the text message (over Godfread's objections as to Steele's lack of
direct knowledge of the conversation.) Steele testified that his
mother-in-law is very religious and was very concerned over his
involvement with the adult industry, and had been active on Die Troll
Die and other sites. He testified that he has no interest in Prenda
Law, but that she had gotten over excited about "random guesswork from
internet pirates." Hansmeier also questioned Steele as to whether
Cooper has any other litigation pending against Steele -- he does, but
Steele said "it defies logic" that an attorney would forge a signature
when he could get anyone in the world to sign a document.

The judge questioned Steele about the text message, eliciting that he
doesn't know whether it was sent by his mother-in-law, but that it was
consistent with the tone of "anonymous pirates on the internet." He
mentioned something about the Secretary of State of Illinois, and
Judge Noel followed up to ask about that; Steele testified that the
Secretary of State website would show that Prenda was created by Paul
Duffy. There was some additional questioning about St Kitts and Nevis,
and AF Holdings and Prenda, and that a lot of people incorporate
there.

Where's Mark Lutz?

We broke just before noon, to reconvene after lunch on the point of
whether Godfread would testify. When we reconvened, Hansmeier, having
read the case the judge suggested, recalled his request to have
Godfread testify. And then things got really interesting.

Judge Noel referred to his order for this hearing including an order
for Cooper to appear in person, and for an officer of the plaintiff
"capable of testifying as to the authenticity" of the documents to
also appear. He reviewed the witnesses who had appeared, and noted
that we'd heard nothing from AF Holdings -- though he mentioned that he
was "not sure what Steele's role" was in all this other than being a
former partner of Hansmeier... "So," he said, "Where's AF Holdings?"

Hansmeier said that Lutz was planning to come, and is the sole officer
of AF Holdings, and did make it to an earlier conference in this case
in person, but that he wasn't present today, and that Mr. Hansmeier
hadn't been able to reach him by phone or email. He voluntarily
elaborated that Steele and Lutz had been booked on the same flight
from Miami, that Steele had gone to Lutz's apartment to meet him
(because Steele had Lutz's boarding pass), but found him not home.
Steele had then, according to Hansmeier, driven around Miami looking
for Lutz, and even encountered some of Lutz's friends who said Lutz
had told them the night before that he had to make an early night of
it because he was traveling to this court in the morning. Hansmeier
offered the boarding pass as proof that Lutz had intended to come.
(Steele was not present in the courtroom after lunch.)

Godfread suggested that Lutz has repeatedly failed to appear at
evidentiary hearings related to AF Holdings cases. Hansmeier responded
by stating that Lutz hadn't been able to attend one hearing because
he'd been detained by "federal agents" in an airport (the court
requested clarification on this point, but all Hansmeier had was that;
he stated that Lutz had asked to file further details of that
detention, in that case, under seal because the detention was
embarrassing.) Hansmeier finally stated that Lutz has appeared,
before Judge Snow in Arizona, on closely related points.

Judge Noel took this all in, gave parties until close of business
tomorrow to file all declarations, and said he'd issue an order "in
due course." The court recessed just about ten minutes after convening
for the afternoon.

from the and-on-and-on dept

The saga of Team Prenda continues, as courts in two of the Prenda cases we've been following have shown that they're getting pretty tired with Team Prenda's attempts to dance around the issues. First up, we've got the various AF Holdings cases up in Minnesota. If you don't recall, these cases had been dismissed, but after the court learned about some of Team Prenda's antics, it reopened the case with an eye towards determining if Team Prenda was guilty of fraud on the court in coaxing settlements out of people on a faulty or illegal basis. Amusingly, late last week, Paul Hansmeier, sticking to Team Prenda's ridiculous strategy of "whenever we're completely backed into a corner, charge!" filed a notice claiming that AF Holdings intended to reopen the original cases. That is, he's now claiming that because magistrate judge Franklin Noel is investigating them for fraud in the original cases, they now want to continue to "sue" people for infringement to show how "legitimate" their cases really were. The notice is worth reading, mainly for the comedic value. Hansmeier claims that Alan Cooper is mentally unstable and was trying to extort money from John Steele. Also, that there was no forgery of Cooper's signature, but rather Cooper "repudiating" his association with AF Holdings.

Of course, the main reason for making this filing isn't to reopen the cases, or to make laughable claims about Alan Cooper, but rather this:

However, Plaintiff has reached the outer-limits of what it can learn without the
coercive power of formal discovery. As such, Plaintiff respectfully requests the Court to
issue an order scheduling a Rule 26(f) conference so it resolve this matter as quickly as
possible.

Basically, it's Paul Hansmeier asking the court for a fishing expedition against Cooper and his lawyer Paul Godfread. It's hard to see this as anything more than an attempt to be a nuisance.

However, it seems highly unlikely that magistrate judge Noel is buying anything that Hansmeier is selling. Instead, his latest order shows that he's getting pretty damn tired of Team Prenda's runaround. It makes no mention of Hansmeier's filing, denies the local counsel Michael Dugas' request to be dropped from the case (noting that he signed the forged papers), repeats the findings of Judge Wright in California, and then orders AF Holdings/Team Prenda to explain why Judge Wright's findings shouldn't apply equally to these cases:

The plaintiff shall file a memorandum of law on or before August 26, 2013 showing cause as to why Judge Wright's factual findings are not binding against it in these cases under the common law doctrine of issue preclusion.
See, e.g., Bechtold v. City of Rosemount, 104 F.3d 1062, 1066-67 (8th Cir.
1997) (issue preclusion appropriate under Minnesota law if (1) the issues are
identical; (2) the prior adjudication ended with a final judgment on the
merits; (3) the plaintiff was a party to the prior adjudication; and (4) the
plaintiff was given a full and fair opportunity to be heard on the adjudicated
issue).

The Clerk of Court shall correct the docket to reflect that Mr. Michael K.
Dugas remains counsel of record for the plaintiff. Although he filed a notice
of withdrawal and substitution, his withdrawal was not effective upon filing
under Local Rule 83.7(b) because it would delay the progress of this case.
He signed the complaint to which the forged documents were attached. If
Mr. Dugas wishes to withdraw as counsel of record for the plaintiff, he must
proceed in accordance with Local Rule 83.7(c) and establish good cause to
do so.

In other words, Team Prenda's can't just ignore Judge Wright's ruling here, and it certainly sounds like Judge Noel has no time for Hansmeier's plans to play discovery games.

Meanwhile, back in the Navasca case in Northern California, it appears that the recent sanctions against Team Prenda that Judge Edward Chen awarded have been ignored by Team Prenda, and a magistrate judge in that court, Nador Vadas, would like to know why. Oh, that's not all Judge Vadas would like to know. It appears that Judge Vadas is now taking a special interest in the now-infamous Paul Hansmeier deposition from this case, which was one of the key documents that convinced Judge Wright that Prenda was up to no good. Judge Vadas has some questions he'd like AF Holdings to answer, and they are the kinds of questions that Paul Hansmeier, Paul Duffy, John Steele and Mark Lutz probably don't want to answer about who actually is behind AF Holdings and the various "trusts" such as Salt Marsh:

Hansmeier testified that AF Holdings was owned by a trust, but he could not testify about the name of the trust.... In a May 2, 2013 filing, Mark Lutz, who identifies himself as someone who “manage[s] various adult content related companies, including AF Holdings LLC,” declared that “Salt Marsh is the name of the trust that owns AF Holdings”.... At the hearing, AF Holdings should be prepared to identify the name of its owner and any entity or person having a financial interest in the outcome of this case, beyond Salt Marsh.

AF Holdings should be prepared to explain why it represented that there were “no known persons, associations of persons, firms, partnerships, corporations (including parent corporations), or other entities (other than the parties themselves) that may have personal or affiliated financial interest in the subject matter in controversy, or any other kind of interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding other than the parties.” Doc. No. 2 (Certificate of Interested Entities).

AF Holdings should be prepared to explain why Paul Hansmeier was designated as its 30(b)(6) deponent instead of Mark Lutz.

Paul Hansmeier was unable to testify about “the exact mechanisms by which the money goes from” to AF Holdings from the law firms that represent it.... AF Holdings should be prepared to explain these “exact mechanisms” at the hearing, and also should be prepared to provide an accounting of the funds it has received from persons it has sued or threatened to sue for copyright violation based on allegedly illegal downloading of its adult titles.

Those all seem like important questions. Questions that would be easy to answer if there were nothing nefarious going on, but which Team Prenda has avoided answering in any meaningful way for months. The hearing at which they need to have such answers ready will be on August 28th. I imagine it will be quite interesting.